Chesapeake Bay News

In the rivers and streams of Pennsylvania, you can find channel catfish, small and largemouth bass, white perch and rainbow trout. But the persistence of toxic contaminants in the Delaware, Ohio and Susquehanna river basins has limited the amount of fish you can consume from the Commonwealth’s waters.

Anglers fish for hickory shad on the Susquehanna River.

Mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other toxic contaminants pose risks across the United States. Toxics enter the environment through air pollution, agricultural and urban runoff, and wastewater discharged from industrial and municipal treatment plants. Toxics bind to sediment, build up in the tissues of fish and move through the food web through a process called bioaccumulation. Because of the health risks associated with the frequent consumption of fish affected by toxics—birth defects and cancer among them—Pennsylvania has advised people to consume no more than eight ounces of locally caught sport fish in a given week.

Pennsylvania isn’t the only state in the watershed coping with contaminants. According to data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 74 percent of the tidal Chesapeake Bay is partially or fully impaired by toxics. And all states in the watershed have issued fish consumption advisories as a result.

Image courtesy Sergey Ryzhov/Shutterstock.

Of course, most fish consumption advisories aren’t meant to stop the consumption of all locally caught fish, unless Do Not Eat is shown in an advisory listing. Some people are more at-risk (pregnant and breast-feeding women, women of childbearing age, and children), and some fish are safer to eat (smaller, younger fish and those species that are not as fatty as their catfish, carp or eel counterparts). For most, the benefits of eating fish can be gained as long as you choose a safe place to fish, pick a safe species to eat, trim and cook your catch correctly, and follow recommended meal frequencies.

About Catherine Krikstan - Catherine Krikstan is a web writer at the Chesapeake Bay Program. She began writing about the watershed as a reporter in Annapolis, Md., where she covered algae blooms and climate change and interviewed hog farmers and watermen. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Faith plays an influential role in the lives of billions of people in the world, with about 84 percent identifying with a religious group. As Ramadan, a month-long ritual focused on self-purification and refocusing attention to faith, comes to an end for roughly 1.6 billion Muslims around the world, it is a good time to reflect on the intersection between conviction and nature.

Green Muslims, a Washington, D.C., based organization with the mission of helping their community live in the environmental spirit of Islam, began with a conversation between a group of friends about how to ‘green’ their Ramadan. At first they took small measures, like switching to reusable plates and having zero-trash iftars, or evening meals, when they could break their fasts. Those simple actions set off a chain reaction of stewardship within the community that led to the formal establishment of Green Muslims as a volunteer organization in 2007.

The nonprofit works with a number of different Muslim communities in the D.C. area, but serves as a national resource for those across the country that are looking to tie their faith back to the natural world. “There is really a passion and a yearning for learning more about what our tradition is amongst the Muslim community everywhere, and we hope to provide those resources and incubate that energy to take it to the next level,” said Colin Christopher, Executive Director of Green Muslims.

Participants and instructors make pinwheels while learning about wind and other renewable energy sources during the "Our Deen is Green!" program held at Peirce Mill in Washington, D.C., on April 25. Green Muslims is a D.C.-based nonprofit organization that engages communities in spiritually-inspired environmental education, reflection, and action.

With many youths spending an increasing amount of time indoors, exposure to and connections with the natural world are lost, often times leading to rises in health problems like allergies and obesity. In a push to alleviate nature deficit disorder, Green Muslims launched the ‘Our Deen is Green’ Youth Outdoor Education Program this year. The program offers a wide range of field trips to places like the Chesapeake Bay, farms and conserved lands to demonstrate real life examples of how Islam and the environment are intertwined.

Each trip offers themed lessons that cover subjects such as, water, food waste and renewable energy. The goal of the program is to reconnect the participants with outdoor spaces and encourage healthy behavior changes, like wiser food choices and increased awareness about human impacts on the planet. “In Islam, we understand that God has an amount of trust in us as Khalifas, or stewards of the Earth. We really see our responsibility as people who need to conserve and protect the natural environment; we are called to do so, it’s our responsibility,” said Christopher.

Colin Christopher is Executive Director of Green Muslims, which was founded in 2007 and recently attained status as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. “Our mission at Green Muslims is Muslims living in the environmental spirit of Islam,” Christopher said.

The final trip of the year was to Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., where the kids toured the historic Peirce Mill and learned how the Earth’s natural processes like water flow and wind create energy that can be harnessed with minimal negative impacts to the environment. Prior to touring the mill, all eight kids sat contently in a circle making windmills out of paper and pencils while discussing where their energy comes from. “Why are we always talking about water?” asks a young boy. “Because we are made of water,” replies Christopher. A look of awe falls over the children’s faces. The importance of water is a theme that weaves through all lessons taught during the program.

The Qur’an has hundreds of verses that talk about water, animals, wind and the sun, and Sharia, or Islamic law, directly translates into ‘the pathway to the water source’—meaning that protecting water is of utmost importance in the tradition of Islam. “Every part of our natural environment is integral to the greater whole. In Islam, we talk about, if you have one limb that is unhealthy then the entire body is unhealthy and sick. So, the Chesapeake Bay is a really integral part of that entire ecosystem and we can’t afford to neglect the Bay or other parts of our ecosystem," explained Christopher.

Ailya Gillani, a high school student from Sterling, Va., and a participant in Green Muslims’ “Our Deen is Green!” program, poses at home with her mother, Nighat Nasim, and father, Syed Abid Gillani. “I could say that the environment does have a big influence in our religion, and vice-versa," Gillani said.

Although the organization aims to spread awareness about the link between Islam and the environment, Christopher believes that diversity is the backbone of the Muslim community and welcomes anyone, regardless of faith, to volunteer and participate in Green Muslim events. “I think that the challenges we face relate to education. There is a lot of misinformation about Islam and what Islam is,” noted Christopher. “We are trying to bring back the teachings of our traditions within our community and explain that conservation, moderation and love for creation are core components of our tradition.”

About Jenna Valente - Jenna developed a passion for conservation through her outdoorsy nature and upbringing in Hawaii, Washington State and Maine. A graduate of Virginia Tech's Executive Master of Natural Resources program and University of Maine's School of Communication and Journalism, she welcomes any opportunity to educate the public about the importance of caring for the environment.

The effects of a changing climate are all around us. Monitoring data shows us that sea levels are rising, water temperatures are increasing and carbon levels are spiking. We can see the impacts of these changes in animal, tree and plant species as they migrate due to shifting conditions. Likewise, pests and diseases are showing up in places where they have never been seen before.

For years, members of the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee (STAC) have been advising us to take the effects of climate change into account as we develop plans and programs for our watershed restoration efforts. Similar recommendations and directives have been included in the President’s Chesapeake Bay Executive Order (13508) and in reports from the Government Accountability Office and the National Academy of Sciences. With the signing of the new Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement in 2014, the issue of climate resiliency has moved front and center. Climate Resiliency is included as one of the ten overarching goals of the accord, with two specific outcomes for adaptation and for monitoring and assessment. The Agreement also recognizes that climate change will affect progress toward the achievement of other goals, requiring Bay Program partners to cross-coordinate among their Goal Implementation Teams.

Climate change is a big deal: it threatens to render less effective or even undo many of the restoration efforts we have made over the past 30 years. Fortunately, an interagency agreement with the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has allowed for the establishment of a new position: Chesapeake Bay Program Climate Coordinator. The Bay Program has selected Zoë P. Johnson, previously the Director of Resiliency Planning and Policy for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, to serve in this position.

Zoë has been actively involved in sea level rise and coastal resiliency planning initiatives at federal, regional, state and local levels since 1998 and is the author of various reports and publications on sea level rise and coastal policy. She served as the Co-Chair of the Chesapeake Bay Program Partnership’s Climate Resiliency Workgroup and serves as key staff to Maryland’s Coast Smart Council and the Commission on Climate Change. The state of Maryland released its Strategy for Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Change: Sea Level Rise and Coastal Storms in 2008, and its Strategy for Building Societal, Economic and Ecologic Resilience in 2011. Using these strategies as a guide, Zoë was responsible for overseeing the development of state-level policy, as well as the execution of on-the-ground projects to implement a suite of natural resource adaptation priorities.

The impacts of climate change will affect the Chesapeake Bay and its ecosystem more dramatically than many other areas of the country—but Zoë is ideally suited to take on this very significant and important task. This is an exciting moment for the Bay Program partnership, and we are incredibly fortunate to have someone with Zoë’s background and breadth and depth of experience to be leading this effort. She knows the Bay Program, she knows climate change issues, she knows the players; she will be able to hit the ground running.

Note: The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect U.S. EPA policy endorsement or action.

About Nick DiPasquale - Nick has nearly 30 years of public policy and environmental management experience in both the public and private sectors. He previously served as Deputy Secretary in the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Director of the Environmental Management Center for the Brandywine Conservancy in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania and as Secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

Rich soil and a mild climate have made the lands of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, a haven for agriculture. Thousands of farms—more than any other county in the state—dot the landscape of gently rolling countryside. Traveling through the region, the fields and fences, barns and silos can begin to blur together. But venture onto the land itself, and each tract of farmland tells a unique story. For Oregon Dairy Farm in the heart of Lancaster County, the story is one of family, conservation and community.

Maria Forry and her father George Hurst, owner of Oregon Dairy Farm in Lititz, Pa., pose in one of their fields on May 2, 2015. Oregon Dairy Farm, which composts food waste and cow manure, utilizes cover crops, and powers the entire farm with a methane digester, was named as a 2015 U.S. Dairy Sustainability Award winner.

A family-run operation, Oregon Dairy Farm is managed by George Hurst, his son Chad and his daughter and son-in-law Maria and Tim Forry. Hurst also co-owns the nearby market, restaurant and ice cream parlor with his brothers. He is the second-generation owner of the land, after his father bought the farm in the early 1950s. “I grew up here and bought the farm, bought the house where I grew up,” said Hurst. “Now my daughter, Maria, is living in that same house.”

Pennsylvania is second in the nation for number of dairy farms, outranking every state except Wisconsin. And that number continues to grow: in 2014, Pennsylvania was the only state in which the number of dairy farms increased. Though this may be good news for ice cream lovers, it can sometimes be difficult to reconcile agricultural growth with the health of the Chesapeake Bay, as agriculture is the single largest source of nutrient and sediment pollution entering the estuary. But for the Hurst family, protecting the Bay is an important part of the way they run their farm.

Holstein cows rest in a pen at Oregon Dairy Farm in Lititz, Pa., on May 1, 2015.

Two decades ago, the Hurst family took a visit to the Chesapeake Bay. What they saw—polluted waters and their damaging effects on local fishermen—troubled them. “When I took that tour, I knew we had to do what we can here [at Oregon Dairy Farm] to make sure we’re not polluting the Bay,” Hurst recalled. “That’s when we became even more intentional with the practices we have in place here.”

Those practices include a variety of “best management practices,” or BMPs—conservation methods that can help curb nutrients and sediment from running off agricultural land and into rivers, streams and the Bay. To protect the health of waters running through their land, the Hurst family practices no-till farming, uses cover crops, plants trees and shrubs to prevent streambank erosion and has installed fencing to keep livestock out of waterways.

As home to 500 cows, one of the farm’s biggest challenges was figuring out how to manage all the animal waste. “Because we’re a dairy, there’s lots of manure,” Hurst explained. According to estimates from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), livestock waste accounts for 19 percent of the nitrogen and 26 percent of the phosphorous entering the Bay. These excess nutrients can fuel the growth of algae blooms that block sunlight from reaching underwater grasses and, during decomposition, rob the water of oxygen that plants and animals need to survive.

To avoid nutrient runoff, Hurst puts as much of this waste to use as possible. A methane digester collects and heats the manure, and the resulting methane gas powers a generator that produces more than enough electricity to run the farm.

Young planted trees line a stream running through Oregon Dairy Farm in Lititz, Pa., on May 1, 2015.

After traveling through the digester, solid and liquid wastes are separated. Solid waste can be dried and used as livestock bedding or transported to the on-site composting facility. Three large hoop buildings house the compost piles, which will eventually be sold wholesale to landscapers or in Oregon Dairy’s retail lawn and garden store. Liquid waste flows to the lagoon, which holds about an eight month supply, allowing it to be applied to the land when the fields need it and will absorb it. “We make sure we aren’t putting more manure on than what will stay in place, and no more than what the soil needs or what will be taken up by the crops,” said Hurst. These innovative waste practices helped the farm win a U.S. Dairy Sustainability Award in 2015.

Aslan Umble, 4, of Lancaster, Pa., plays on a playground at Oregon Dairy Supermarket with his brother Kai Umble, 7, and father Ryan Umble on May 1, 2015.

Since the 1980s, outside dairy farmers, school field trips and other community members have been welcome to tour—and learn from—the farm. School tours bring nearly 2,000 student visitors each year, and Family Farm Days events can draw upwards of 15,000 people a year to the farm. More than just a way of life, Hurst and his family see their farm as a way to teach others about how they care for their land.

“Our passion and vision is to help people understand where their food comes from,” said Hurst. “That’s where [the farm tours] originated and that’s really why we do what we do.”

About Stephanie Smith - Stephanie is the Web Content Manager at the Chesapeake Bay Program. A native of the Midwest, she received her Bachelor’s in Professional Writing from Purdue University and Master of Science degree from the University of Michigan. Stephanie’s lifelong love of nature motivates her to explore solutions to environmental problems and teach others what they can do to help.